Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-01T18:12:02.383Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Uneven and Combined Resistance: Marikana and The Trail to ‘Tunisia Day’ 2020

from Part III - Conclusions: The Future as History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2015

Get access

Summary

The prior two chapters showed how the wholehearted embrace of neo-liber-alism by the African National Congress from the early 1990s left the economy especially fragile, reliant upon asset bubbles and subject to capital flight at the first sign of trouble. Although from 1993–2008 there was technical GDP growth each year, it was terribly stilted. Although South Africa technically began recovering from formal recession in late 2009, this did not reverse the economic rot: i.e., the rise of mass unemployment, further property market turmoil, manufacturing stagnation, a severe credit squeeze and a return to dangerous current account deficits (as the big extractive and financial corporations shipped out funds to London, and as trade slipped into deficit, too). As inequality increased and reports became more frequent of corporate managers ‘earning’ millions of dollars in salary and perks, South Africa became a microcosm of growing global concerns about the ‘1 per cent’ versus the ‘99 per cent’.

One of the most visible representatives of the latter was Congress of SA Trade Unions (COSATU) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi. He regularly articulated the limits of worker patience during his long career in trade-union leadership, although in the second half of 2012 this role was constrained by shifting power balances and in mid-2013 he became embroiled in a major controversy concerning his sexual behaviour with a subordinate, leaving the momentum within the left of the labour movement to be forged by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA).

Type
Chapter
Information
South Africa - The Present as History
From Mrs Ples to Mandela and Marikana
, pp. 213 - 242
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×